Since coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) started as a fast-spreading pandemic, causing a huge number of deaths worldwide, several therapeutic options have been tested to counteract or reduce the clinical symptoms of patients infected with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Currently, no specific drugs for COVID-19 but many antiviral agents have been authorised by several national agencies. Most of them are under investigation in both preclinical and clinical trials; however, pharmacokinetic and metabolism studies are needed to identify the most suitable dose to achieve the desired effect on SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, the efforts of the scientific community have focused on the screening of therapies able to counteract the most severe effects of the infection, as well as on the search of sensitive and selective analytical methods for drug detection in biological matrices, both fluids and tissues. In the last decade, many analytical methods have been proposed for the detection and quantification of antiviral compounds currently being tested for COVID-19 treatment. In this review, a critical discussion on the overall analytical procedure is provided, i.e (a) sample pre-treatment and extraction methods such as protein precipitation (PP), solid-phase extraction (SPE), liquid–liquid extraction (LLE), ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) and QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe), (b) detection and quantification methods such as potentiometry, spectrofluorimetry and mass spectrometry (MS) as well as (c) methods including a preliminary separation step, such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) coupled to UV-Vis or MS detection. Further current trends, advantages and disadvantages and prospects of these methods have been discussed, to help the analytical advances in reducing the harm caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

A negative search using, '& of the eventual MACRO detector has yielded nuclearite flux limits of 1.1&&10 ' cm sr 's ' for 10 ' & ni (0.1 g, and 5.5x 10 ' cm sr 's ' for m)O.l g. We have modified the formula of De Rujula and Glashow for the light yield of nuclearites to include the uv light absorbed and reemitted in the visible region, and proved that the MACRO sensitivity extends almost to the escape velocity of the Earth. Our Aux limit, therefore, can be used to address nuclearites that are possibly trapped in the solar system.

We have analyzed a sample of 1.8 x 10 exp 6 muons with E(mu) greater than about 1.3 TeV collected by the first and second supermodules of the MACRO detector at Gran Sasso during the period 1989 February to 1991 February. We have searched for an excess of muons of celestial origin over cosmic-ray background. Our search for steady sources in solid angle bins of 3.0 x 3.0 deg in the declination range -5 to 90 deg was negative; the upper limit with 95 percent C.L. to the muon flux at midlatitudes is less than about 2 x 10 exp -12/sq cm s. In addition, we have searched for muon excesses modulated by the orbital period of selected X-ray sources, including Cyg X-3, Cyg X-1, Her X-1, 4U 0115 + 63, and 4U 1907 + 09. We have no evidence of any bursting activity from Cyg X-3, during our search period, which includes the radio outburst of 1991 January

Apples represent a greater proportion of the worldwide fruit supply, due to their availability on the market and to the high number of existing cultivar varieties and apple-based products (fresh fruit, fruit juice, cider and crushed apples). Several studies on apple fruit metabolites are available, with most of them focusing on their healthy properties’ evaluation. In general, the metabolic profile of apple fruits strongly correlates with most of their peculiar characteristics, such as taste, flavor and color. At the same time, many bioactive molecules could be identified as markers of a specific apple variety. Therefore, a complete description of the analytical protocols commonly used for apple metabolites’ characterization and quantification could be useful for researchers involved in the identification of new phytochemical compounds from different apple varieties. This review describes the analytical methods published in the last ten years, in order to analyze the most important primary and secondary metabolites of Malus domestica fruits. In detail, this review gives an account of the spectrophotometric, chromatographic and mass spectrometric methods. A discussion on the quantitative and qualitative analytical shortcomings for the identification of sugars, fatty acids, polyphenols, organic acids, carotenoids and terpenes found in apple fruits is reported.

We present a study of the correlations in the arrival times of about 1016 single and multiple muons detected by the first two MACRO supermodules. The time correlations, from milliseconds to several hundrends of seconds, have been analyzed in terms of the random distribution, with which they are consistent. An analysis of the arrival times (up to 180 ns) of the muons from the same multimuon event is also give